National Post (National Edition)
‘It’s definitely special’
RAPTORS CHAMPIONSHIP RINGS SECOND BIGGEST EVER
The Toronto Raptors made quite a statement last June and wanted to do the same with the rings celebrating that unlikely and long-awaited NBA championship.
Mainstay point guard Kyle Lowry was called in to dish out yet another assist — a hand with the design and it’s safe to say the end result was mission accomplished.
The rings, which were presented to Raptors players, coaches, staffers and ownership before Tuesday’s season opener against the New Orleans Pelicans, are certainly eye-catching. Designed by Baron Championship Rings, they’re the second-largest in North American sports history. Only the New England Patriots have made bigger ones, and that was only after winning a sixth Super Bowl since 2001 back in February. As someone remarked, when winning becomes that commonplace, you have to make your rings stand out. Any long-suffering fan knows that winning isn’t all that commonplace in Toronto, but that’s also why so much thought went into producing the end product, the highend tier ring out of five tiers in total.
“It ’s something you earned. It took a long time to get,” Lowry said on a recent conference call with a handful of Raptors beat writers.
“It’s the first one in the organization’s history and I think that was one of the things we wanted to make sure it stood apart from every other ring that’s been done before. It’s the first team outside of the U.S. to have a ring, to win a championship,” Lowry said. “So we were like, ‘Listen we can’t have it like anyone else, we need it to be different, because it’s definitely special.’”
Every last detail on the rings was weighted and debated. Lowry said Judy Tanenbaum (the wife of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment co-owner Larry Tanenbaum) and Suzanne Rogers (wife of co-owner Edward Rogers III) originally wanted something smaller, but Lowry talked them up.
The final result was 14 carats of diamonds and more than 650 diamonds in all, topped by a 1.25 carat diamond on top of the Larry O’Brien Trophy (the largest single diamond in the history of professional sports rings) with 14 karats of yellow gold on the ring, 16 rubies representing the 16 wins it took in the playoffs to win it all and the jersey numbers of all sixteen players on the roster.
You’ ll also notice the CN Tower, six diamonds — representing Toronto, ‘The 6’ — Scotiabank Centre and a chevron with ‘NORTH’ spelled out on it. The chevron is a nod to the jerseys the Raptors triumphed in in Oakland, ‘NORTH’ a nod to the We the North marketing campaign that morphed into the team’s identity.
“Inside the ring everyone has their own writing on there or signature or stamp that they wanted to have on there to make it really personal,” Lowry said.
Raptors players besides Lowry and most staffers didn’t get to see the rings until the ceremony on Tuesday, which is why Lowry was initially reluctant to share details until he was told a few of us had seen a sample of his own ring. “Oh, boo,” quipped Lowry when he learned the cat was out of the bag.
After that though, he was happy to describe them, clearly proud and honoured the organization had asked him to be a big part of the process (Lowry even flew in for the final meeting).
Both Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chief marketing officer Shannon Hosford and Baron president Peter Kanis wanted to make it clear Lowry was adamant everyone, no matter what tier of ring they received, would be able to put some sort of personal touch on it.
“This is a statement piece, kind of you don’t wear it every day, you wear it once in a while,” Lowry said about why he wanted such a large ring, adding the increased size allowed the details to stand out more.
“That was a big thing for me having the (74) diamonds in there because that indicates how many wins that we had (in the regular season and playoffs), that it got to that point. The players names around each player, individual numbers, because every player that was a part of us had a piece of that,” he said. “The red rubies, making sure you are keeping the Canadian flag in there and the North chevron, the jerseys we kind of won it in, it made it even more special.”
Though he hadn’t yet seen it, head coach Nick Nurse indicated Lowry had been hinting at what to expect.
“It’s not a ring anymore, it’s like a piece of furniture,” joked Nurse on Tuesday morning.
According to Hosford, the design process kicked off nearly immediately following those heady days in June.
Three ring designers were invited in. Lowry said he thought the first presentation was unbeatable, until Baron came in and “blew us away, it was a unanimous decision.” Baron had designed title commemorating rings for Toronto FC and Raptors 905 and was the only Canadian company in the bidding process.
What did Lowry expect his teammates to say when they finally laid eyes on the end product?
“They’re going to be like, can I say this politely? What the f___. I know you can’t write (that). Maybe WTF. Does that work, maybe?”
Probably not, Kyle, but the rings certainly work.